Lynn Meadows' Journal - November 26 - November 29
11/29/2005 17:41
United
Peace Relief Slidell LA Day 6 November 26, 2005
Saturday
Today we have to get up at 4:30 am to get Bob and Shannon to the airport. It is sad that they are leaving. I have accomplished my goal of giving Bob the Katrina bug and he already wants to come back. It only takes 45 min. to get to the airport so I ended up at the Common Ground Clinic before they were open. They have internet there so I finally found time to write my journals. Slowly the clinic starts to stir as I am typing away. Today Cottie Morrison a Nurse Practitioner from Ukiah starts to volunteer in the clinic, so we are working together. So nice to see her and share in this experience.
I love Torian the third year medical student from New Jersey. He presents his patients just right, thoroughly and humbly just like a student should, which gives me confidence in him. This is his first time seeing so many patients and being so needed. I can see in his eyes the beauty of it all, and the future that he is preparing for. He will never forget this and it will help him have the energy for the years of study ahead. So this is what it is all about. Wow!
The clinic is much slower today and we have another doctor. I can take my time with the patients. The most beautiful thing today was a mother and daughter. Their home is ruined and they are living in a FEMa trailer. The child has atopic dermatitis (eczema) and asthma. They explain that she is having a flare of her chronic itchy rash on arms legs and neck. Her asthma is pretty much under control with her multiple meds. I question them about how much mold exposure they are getting and they say they are not going into the house. The Mom has a stiff neck and needs meds for her asthma. She then says do you think an herbalist could help with my daughters rash? Do you think that a massage will help my stiff neck and back pain? The answer is yes to both and the wonderful thing is that we have volunteer herbalists and massage therapists working in the clinic. They got a consult with the herbalist and they both got massages. Now that is one stop shopping of the highest order. Never before have I worked in a place where the patients got such comprehensive and loving care, all for free. Knowing how much stress they are under, it was a case of dispensing hope, one person at a time.
I left the clinic early and headed back to Slidell. I had time before dark to go visit some churches to find out what they were doing for disaster relief. I found that some operations had stopped and others were consolidating. I handed out my cards and let them know that we are here to help needy families with yard clearing and house gutting. I picked their brains about outlying communities that need help.
I got home to camp at dark and was a bit disoriented finding my way down our lane amidst the rubble. A local guy named Russell had come with his Bobcat and volunteered his time to move the giant fallen trees and debris away to clear the way for us to have a driveway and parking area. This place is coming together. He told us about an elderly woman in the neighborhood who needs help so we are going to send our crew out to clean out her house.
The big news of the the day came from Carols run to the Waveland Cafe, where the Rainbow family is packing up their huge kitchen and feeding operation to move to New Orleans. They had so much extra food to give away that she filled up her car and brought us 2 turkeys and a big bag of bakery bread. They had a big Turkey dinner going in our new warm kitchen. Lots of joy about the abundance of food, because we know this is the way we can make our food budget work. We had enough food to take some to Common Ground for distribution. The joys of networking.
Gordon showed up with his entourage with our internet Satellite! He has started a new organization called Voices for Peace, and plans to stay in the area and help with internet communication for disaster relief. They hooked it up and we set up our office in the newly painted middle room of the house. We could not get it working, but I have faith. Not a dull moment around here with volunteers and gifts coming in all the time.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Slidell LA Sunday November 27 Day 7
Our Slidell family is growing. Elaine from Plenty arrived with Patrick today. She is a labor and delivery nurse who has arranged for us to do some prenatal care at the common ground clinic. This is her forth trip down here since Katrina hit. She lives on the Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee. She has adopted a neighborhood in Biloxi and stopped there on her way here, she does needs assessments and brings in food, clothing and supplies. This time she is a bit distraught because the weather has turned so cold and they need blankets. She gets the OK from Plenty to buy 50 blankets to distribute there. We are so joyful to meet again, the last time was early September at camp Covington with the Veterans for Peace. She brought Patrick who is a retired contractor. He states he is here to be our “handyman”. She stopped at Waveland and picked up more food to distribute. She brought us another load of bread, enough to distribute to Common Ground the next day.
Elaine brought us the news that Plenty was giving us $1000 to add to the money we had raised at home in Mendocino county. The Mendocino Coast Hurricane Relief Committee had given us substantial support so we had enough to go on a shopping spree to buy tools, sleeping pads, wheel barrows, and a propane heater.
Today was a catch up day day for me. We worked in the office and made a proposal for funding, we e-mailed it off and crossed our fingers. Ken got the Satellite internet going, and we were on the net!!! You should have seen us 3 girls sitting together at the table surfing the net. It was time for me to correspond with volunteers and work on recruiting more.
Work on the house goes on. Patrick and Deborah are clearing out the flooded, disgusting shed so we can have a place to organize the tools. We are on the cell phones constantly networking and communicating with volunteers and organizations who are coming to our meeting on Wednesday. Ken and Mike have to leave tonight to start back home to get to their jobs.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Slidell LA Day 8 Monday November 28
Today Elaine and I are off early to go to New Orleans to the Louisiana State Medical Board. They have been closed for the holiday. I faxed them my information in advance, I needed to get down there to register in person. This allows me to write prescriptions and practice medicine as a physician assistant under the state of emergency. The official I talked to said at this point the state of emergency will end on Dec 31, if it is not extended than volunteers will have to go through a full credentialing process to practice in Louisiana. We plan to contact the governor to pressure her to extend the State of Emergency, if she does not then I will have to stop recruiting medical volunteers who want to practice medicine. Alabama has not permitted any emergency licensing of medical volunteers, which has seriously curtailed our efforts to bring medical support to the undeserved people there.
As usual the clinic was full of activity. They had plenty of providers today so we decided to focus on the pregnant women and mothers with new babies. Leah is a volunteer at the clinic who is interested in providing women's health care. She is afraid that they are going to see an increase in cervical cancer because women have no access to pap smears. There are no pregnant women at the clinic today so we went off to the local public health clinic to find out what is available for pregnant women. There is a WIC clinic which provides food stamps to women with children, they say they see about 15 pregnant women a day and there is no where for uninsured women to go. We talk with the social worker and pediatric nurse and they send us to the Director of Nurses for public health. Leah and Elaine decide to work with her to see if we can start a prenatal clinic in the same location at the WIC program. Elaine is on her cell phone for the rest of the day making arrangements, her new ongoing project.
We start back early and decide to make a follow up visit to a Catholic Convent of Vietnamese Nuns on the outskirts of New Orleans. Niki and Steve had done extensive chain saw work there to clear the fallen trees and open their driveway. We made our way through the upscale ghost town of brick houses with mud and debris piled everywhere. We found the convent had already been gutted and no one there. We visited their childcare center across town which had mold and needed gutting. It was in such an upscale neighborhood, we decided that it would be better for us to find people with more desperate need. The nuns were so kind and happy to see us, they need help, but we felt they would not have trouble getting what they need.
We got back to the camp and the generator was going as they were sawing boards to make shelves for the new pantry. Niki had the power washer going again to clean out the final room in the house. I was tired and took off to town to get away from the noise. I was feeling a bit depressed, which comes with this kind of work. The ups and downs, the moments of doubt. The problems are so big, how can we as individuals make a difference? Sometimes we sit in the horrible traffic and it feels like we are wasting time and getting nowhere. I was feeling guilt about putting so much work into fixing up a place for volunteers and not helping a needy person. I decided to visit some more churches and hand out my card, try to make a connection to the neediest people in the area.
I was having a moment of doubt about recruiting volunteers, as some people say that everyone is forgetting about Katrina. Are we crazy to have this vision about giving hope to these people and help them out for the next year? Will our camp stand empty? Where will we get the money to feed the volunteers? How will we get building supplies? From experience I know that these moments of doubt always come. If I ride them out everything will come out OK.
We had another fabulous dinner and took off for Home Depot on our first shopping spree. We got 10 crowbars, 10 hammers, 10 flat bars, 3 flat shovels, 2 brooms, work gloves, a shop vac, plywood, nails and 2 X 4s. It was quite exciting to know that we would have tools for our volunteers. Then we got a call from Niki, Meg from the Frida Bus, a group of 13 young people from Portland Maine wanted to come and stay with United Peace Relief and do house clean up and gutting! Yahoo! They also notified us that our funding proposal was granted at 2 times what we requested. So I went from doubting to elated in the course of 3 hours. That is typical for working down here. This time I am going to learn to always believe we can do it.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Slidell LA Tuesday November 29
Today Elaine and I went to Walmart to get 30 comforters for her adopted neighborhood in Biloxi. We also got household goods to stock the volunteer house. We are continuing to clear the land of downed trees and debris. The Frida Bus came with 10 of the 13 young volunteers, they have been working gutting houses in New Orleans. They just got back from helping with a school reading program in Mobile, Alabama.
3 volunteers came from the Rainbow Family in Waveland. More wonderful people you have never met. They are going to se up the new holistic healing tent at the new soup kitchen site in New Orleans
We got an e-mail about a man in Pass Christian who had been feeding people out of his truck and paying for the food with his own money. He was sending out a desperate plea because he had to close down until he could get more food. Elaine decided to take a group to Waveland to pick up food and distribute it. She said the condition in Pass Christian was terrible. People are cold, living in cars and tents and they are hungary. She came back feeling sad and helpless about Pass Christian. She was soul sick wondering if she had done the right thing buying all of those blankets for Biloxi when the situation in Pass christian was so much worse.
I got to work the power washer on our second house at the camp. It was flooded and there is debris up to the ceiling, stuck on the walls. We will be gutting this house and making into a dorm.
Today we have to get up at 4:30 am to get Bob and Shannon to the airport. It is sad that they are leaving. I have accomplished my goal of giving Bob the Katrina bug and he already wants to come back. It only takes 45 min. to get to the airport so I ended up at the Common Ground Clinic before they were open. They have internet there so I finally found time to write my journals. Slowly the clinic starts to stir as I am typing away. Today Cottie Morrison a Nurse Practitioner from Ukiah starts to volunteer in the clinic, so we are working together. So nice to see her and share in this experience.
I love Torian the third year medical student from New Jersey. He presents his patients just right, thoroughly and humbly just like a student should, which gives me confidence in him. This is his first time seeing so many patients and being so needed. I can see in his eyes the beauty of it all, and the future that he is preparing for. He will never forget this and it will help him have the energy for the years of study ahead. So this is what it is all about. Wow!
The clinic is much slower today and we have another doctor. I can take my time with the patients. The most beautiful thing today was a mother and daughter. Their home is ruined and they are living in a FEMa trailer. The child has atopic dermatitis (eczema) and asthma. They explain that she is having a flare of her chronic itchy rash on arms legs and neck. Her asthma is pretty much under control with her multiple meds. I question them about how much mold exposure they are getting and they say they are not going into the house. The Mom has a stiff neck and needs meds for her asthma. She then says do you think an herbalist could help with my daughters rash? Do you think that a massage will help my stiff neck and back pain? The answer is yes to both and the wonderful thing is that we have volunteer herbalists and massage therapists working in the clinic. They got a consult with the herbalist and they both got massages. Now that is one stop shopping of the highest order. Never before have I worked in a place where the patients got such comprehensive and loving care, all for free. Knowing how much stress they are under, it was a case of dispensing hope, one person at a time.
I left the clinic early and headed back to Slidell. I had time before dark to go visit some churches to find out what they were doing for disaster relief. I found that some operations had stopped and others were consolidating. I handed out my cards and let them know that we are here to help needy families with yard clearing and house gutting. I picked their brains about outlying communities that need help.
I got home to camp at dark and was a bit disoriented finding my way down our lane amidst the rubble. A local guy named Russell had come with his Bobcat and volunteered his time to move the giant fallen trees and debris away to clear the way for us to have a driveway and parking area. This place is coming together. He told us about an elderly woman in the neighborhood who needs help so we are going to send our crew out to clean out her house.
The big news of the the day came from Carols run to the Waveland Cafe, where the Rainbow family is packing up their huge kitchen and feeding operation to move to New Orleans. They had so much extra food to give away that she filled up her car and brought us 2 turkeys and a big bag of bakery bread. They had a big Turkey dinner going in our new warm kitchen. Lots of joy about the abundance of food, because we know this is the way we can make our food budget work. We had enough food to take some to Common Ground for distribution. The joys of networking.
Gordon showed up with his entourage with our internet Satellite! He has started a new organization called Voices for Peace, and plans to stay in the area and help with internet communication for disaster relief. They hooked it up and we set up our office in the newly painted middle room of the house. We could not get it working, but I have faith. Not a dull moment around here with volunteers and gifts coming in all the time.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Slidell LA Sunday November 27 Day 7
Our Slidell family is growing. Elaine from Plenty arrived with Patrick today. She is a labor and delivery nurse who has arranged for us to do some prenatal care at the common ground clinic. This is her forth trip down here since Katrina hit. She lives on the Farm, an intentional community in Tennessee. She has adopted a neighborhood in Biloxi and stopped there on her way here, she does needs assessments and brings in food, clothing and supplies. This time she is a bit distraught because the weather has turned so cold and they need blankets. She gets the OK from Plenty to buy 50 blankets to distribute there. We are so joyful to meet again, the last time was early September at camp Covington with the Veterans for Peace. She brought Patrick who is a retired contractor. He states he is here to be our “handyman”. She stopped at Waveland and picked up more food to distribute. She brought us another load of bread, enough to distribute to Common Ground the next day.
Elaine brought us the news that Plenty was giving us $1000 to add to the money we had raised at home in Mendocino county. The Mendocino Coast Hurricane Relief Committee had given us substantial support so we had enough to go on a shopping spree to buy tools, sleeping pads, wheel barrows, and a propane heater.
Today was a catch up day day for me. We worked in the office and made a proposal for funding, we e-mailed it off and crossed our fingers. Ken got the Satellite internet going, and we were on the net!!! You should have seen us 3 girls sitting together at the table surfing the net. It was time for me to correspond with volunteers and work on recruiting more.
Work on the house goes on. Patrick and Deborah are clearing out the flooded, disgusting shed so we can have a place to organize the tools. We are on the cell phones constantly networking and communicating with volunteers and organizations who are coming to our meeting on Wednesday. Ken and Mike have to leave tonight to start back home to get to their jobs.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Slidell LA Day 8 Monday November 28
Today Elaine and I are off early to go to New Orleans to the Louisiana State Medical Board. They have been closed for the holiday. I faxed them my information in advance, I needed to get down there to register in person. This allows me to write prescriptions and practice medicine as a physician assistant under the state of emergency. The official I talked to said at this point the state of emergency will end on Dec 31, if it is not extended than volunteers will have to go through a full credentialing process to practice in Louisiana. We plan to contact the governor to pressure her to extend the State of Emergency, if she does not then I will have to stop recruiting medical volunteers who want to practice medicine. Alabama has not permitted any emergency licensing of medical volunteers, which has seriously curtailed our efforts to bring medical support to the undeserved people there.
As usual the clinic was full of activity. They had plenty of providers today so we decided to focus on the pregnant women and mothers with new babies. Leah is a volunteer at the clinic who is interested in providing women's health care. She is afraid that they are going to see an increase in cervical cancer because women have no access to pap smears. There are no pregnant women at the clinic today so we went off to the local public health clinic to find out what is available for pregnant women. There is a WIC clinic which provides food stamps to women with children, they say they see about 15 pregnant women a day and there is no where for uninsured women to go. We talk with the social worker and pediatric nurse and they send us to the Director of Nurses for public health. Leah and Elaine decide to work with her to see if we can start a prenatal clinic in the same location at the WIC program. Elaine is on her cell phone for the rest of the day making arrangements, her new ongoing project.
We start back early and decide to make a follow up visit to a Catholic Convent of Vietnamese Nuns on the outskirts of New Orleans. Niki and Steve had done extensive chain saw work there to clear the fallen trees and open their driveway. We made our way through the upscale ghost town of brick houses with mud and debris piled everywhere. We found the convent had already been gutted and no one there. We visited their childcare center across town which had mold and needed gutting. It was in such an upscale neighborhood, we decided that it would be better for us to find people with more desperate need. The nuns were so kind and happy to see us, they need help, but we felt they would not have trouble getting what they need.
We got back to the camp and the generator was going as they were sawing boards to make shelves for the new pantry. Niki had the power washer going again to clean out the final room in the house. I was tired and took off to town to get away from the noise. I was feeling a bit depressed, which comes with this kind of work. The ups and downs, the moments of doubt. The problems are so big, how can we as individuals make a difference? Sometimes we sit in the horrible traffic and it feels like we are wasting time and getting nowhere. I was feeling guilt about putting so much work into fixing up a place for volunteers and not helping a needy person. I decided to visit some more churches and hand out my card, try to make a connection to the neediest people in the area.
I was having a moment of doubt about recruiting volunteers, as some people say that everyone is forgetting about Katrina. Are we crazy to have this vision about giving hope to these people and help them out for the next year? Will our camp stand empty? Where will we get the money to feed the volunteers? How will we get building supplies? From experience I know that these moments of doubt always come. If I ride them out everything will come out OK.
We had another fabulous dinner and took off for Home Depot on our first shopping spree. We got 10 crowbars, 10 hammers, 10 flat bars, 3 flat shovels, 2 brooms, work gloves, a shop vac, plywood, nails and 2 X 4s. It was quite exciting to know that we would have tools for our volunteers. Then we got a call from Niki, Meg from the Frida Bus, a group of 13 young people from Portland Maine wanted to come and stay with United Peace Relief and do house clean up and gutting! Yahoo! They also notified us that our funding proposal was granted at 2 times what we requested. So I went from doubting to elated in the course of 3 hours. That is typical for working down here. This time I am going to learn to always believe we can do it.
Lynn Meadows United Peace Relief Slidell LA Tuesday November 29
Today Elaine and I went to Walmart to get 30 comforters for her adopted neighborhood in Biloxi. We also got household goods to stock the volunteer house. We are continuing to clear the land of downed trees and debris. The Frida Bus came with 10 of the 13 young volunteers, they have been working gutting houses in New Orleans. They just got back from helping with a school reading program in Mobile, Alabama.
3 volunteers came from the Rainbow Family in Waveland. More wonderful people you have never met. They are going to se up the new holistic healing tent at the new soup kitchen site in New Orleans
We got an e-mail about a man in Pass Christian who had been feeding people out of his truck and paying for the food with his own money. He was sending out a desperate plea because he had to close down until he could get more food. Elaine decided to take a group to Waveland to pick up food and distribute it. She said the condition in Pass Christian was terrible. People are cold, living in cars and tents and they are hungary. She came back feeling sad and helpless about Pass Christian. She was soul sick wondering if she had done the right thing buying all of those blankets for Biloxi when the situation in Pass christian was so much worse.
I got to work the power washer on our second house at the camp. It was flooded and there is debris up to the ceiling, stuck on the walls. We will be gutting this house and making into a dorm.